The depth of the Ohio High School Athletic Association Division I Solon sectional tennis tournament may have gotten deeper but Aurora senior Vincent Cannata was ready for the competition. Cannata earned a berth to the Division I district tournament for the second consecutive year when he finished in third place by going 4-1 last week at Solon Community Park.
“I feel I played pretty well,” Cannata said. “There was definitely room for improvement but over these next few days I can fix those little mistakes and hopefully play my best for districts.”
Cannata will face off against Revere freshman Finn Keenan in the first round of the OHSAA Division I district tournament at the Springside Athletic Club in Akron this week beginning on Thursday at 9 a.m.
Having been a district qualifier by taking third place last year, Cannata said one of his goals was to return to the district tournament for his senior season.
On Tuesday, Cannata got off to a strong start by winning his first two matches. He defeated Chardon’s Ivan Medved 6-0, 6-0 in the second round then overpowered junior Zaiya Berzanske 6-0, 6-0 in the second round to advance to the quarterfinals.
On Thursday, Cannata outlasted Shaker Heights’ freshman Jaymil Jamal 7-5, 6-3 to secure his district berth.
The competitors were deadlocked at 5-5 in the first set but Cannata gained the upper hand when he broke Jamal’s serve to go ahead 6-5 and held his serve to win 7-5.
“It was a few return mistakes but his serve was really good and I just targeted his backhand and came to the net and won most points,” noted the Greenmen senior.
Cannata caried that momentum into the second set and got off to a fast start and never relinquished control, ousting the Red Raiders’ freshman from contention. Cannata’s bid to advance to the championship match ended when he was defeated 7-6, 6-3 by sophomore Theodore Vanjo from Mentor.
Cannata ackowledged that when he faced the Cardinals’ sophomore, it became a true test of endurance.
“He had a really interesting game where he just would not miss and it forced me to make mistakes,” he added. “It was a lot of back-and-forth in the first set.”
Although each player broke the other’s serve once, they dueled to a 6-6 tie, forcing a decisive tiebreaker in the first set. Cannata acknowledged that he made too many unforced errors in the tiebreaker, ultimately losing the first set 7-6.
After a competitive first set, Cannata struggled and fell into a 3-0 deficit at the beginning of the second set and could not close the gap en route to a 6-3 loss. He added that even when he hit a strong shot, Vanjo did a good job of tracking the ball down and countering with a stellar return.
“He was very quick and when he hit the good shots too it was not like he hit them right back at me, he hit it in spots where I really had to put it away,” he said.
On Thursday, Cannata returned to the court for one final match to determine the third and fourth seeding. He rebounded from his loss against Vanjo with a resounding 6-4, 6-4 victory against Mayfield junior Josh Kutslikovch.
According to Cannata, there were a lot of points he wished he could have had back in his match against Vanjo and he used that as motivation to end his sectional tournament with a victory to capture the third seed.
“He was really tough as well,” Cannata said. “He just could not break my serve and I broke his once.”
Cannata said it makes a huge difference having the third seed entering the district tournament because had he lost and become the fourth seed, he would have automatically been scheduled to play one of the other top seeds out of one the three Division I sectionals.
Last season, Cannata was one match away from earning a trip to the Division I state tournament and carried that loss with him throughout the offseason.
“I really trained a lot of fitness in the summer and played a lot of soccer which really helped and this year I have really tried to work on the mistakes I learned last year and hopefully play better than I did,” he said.
One his biggest weaknesses last year was his frequency double service faults, which was one of the biggest reasons he did not advance out of the district tournament but he has worked hard and is ready to avenge his disappointing ending from last season.
